I made a decision last night that sounds a little arrogant, but really isn’t and is really for the betterment of my jiu jitsu and a compliment to my teammates.
There is a purple belt girl that I train with a lot, and she is one of the few and the proud that can pass my open guard like it’s not even there. It’s not like my open guard is laughably pathetic, so more often than not it’s surprising when she does.
Another thing I should mention about all of this is I am usually the one that sets pace, I guess you would say in the beginning of the match, in terms of who’s playing bottom and who’s playing top. Or at least it seems that way from my perspective; on further thought she prefers to play bottom, but has no problem springing to top and passing my guard when I sit to work on my bottom game. More often than not I would play top and we would go from there, but lately I have been really trying to work on my bottom game and have recently started there with her.
I decided that at least for the next couple of months I will be starting on the bottom when training with her, and see where it leads. One this girl’s favorite positions is knee in belly and cross-side, so it’s going to be hard at first, but I’m hoping to continue to persevere and come up with some sort of answer to someone with a strong pass like that. She tends to cross the knee, and while I have been getting to half-guard, I haven’t been successful yet passing out of it into a better position.
I’m hoping this doesn’t sound arrogant, but instead a compliment. She has an excellent pass in her arsenal on the mat, and it’s something that I want to get better at defending, and therefore, better with opponents I don’t train a whole bunch with and are, you know, best friends with all the holes in my game.
So, we shall see how it turns out: I imagine I am going to be in a number of sticky situations for a while, but in the end I will hopefully succeed, at least once or twice.
A Skirt on the Mat 